UK Visit Visa refused and false allegations stated in the refusal letters. What are my options?

Question

First Refusal

I was trying visit UK with my wife for holiday for 3 weeks (Both of us are Sri Lankan). Cost of the holiday was roughly £2500.

But our visa was refused with the reason that I do not have enough funds. But I had enough funds (Approx. £8,000) and due to financial requirement of providing a Bank guarantee with buying a new car I had to transfer some my money from one account to another (Both are under my name).

I provided them both bank pass books with my initial application, but Visa officer had just considered the final deposit as a large sum deposited on one account and other did not have enough funds, and he suspected that these funds are not genuinely mine.

Second Refusal

I reapplied with a five page cover letter explaining all the allegations in the previous refusal letter with proof from banks (Letters confirming the Bank guarantee, etc). Both me and my wife are full time employed graduate professional Engineers. We have supplied evidence for last six months salary slips and letters confirming the leave for the holiday. But, Visa was refused once again, as per points below;

1. “You have stated that you are supported by your spouse/partner/other that you have no income of your own and you appear to be financially dependent on your spouse”

• This is a very serious false statement by the Entry Clearance Officer in my wife's rejection letter, as she has clearly stated in her application and in the cover letter that she is Full time Employed
• She has not mentioned either in her application or in the cover letter, that she has no income of her own and is financially dependent on me
• As supporting documents she has submitted Letters from her employer confirming her permanent position, salary slips for last six months and the approved leave for the stated period along with her bank statements to prove her own funds.

2. “You have not sent any new evidence with your new application to overcome our doubts about your circumstances and plans”

• This is also inaccurate, as we have submitted number of documents to prove the transactions between my accounts to clarify the points raised in the previous refusal letter and to prove why I did those transactions. I have also submitted the extensive cover letter explaining the same
• Our intention was to prove that the funds are genuinely ours, which changes the circumstances between the earlier application and the new application

3. “You have now submitted up to date letters from your banks and you and your spouse's employers”

• This statement contradicts the statement in my wife’s refusal letter explained in point 1.

4. “I note that in your previous application you stated that you had £2,300 (LKR.465,198) between you for your holiday in the UK”

• This is inaccurate, as what we have stated in the previous application is that we have £4,000 for the trip)
• £2,300 is the personal cost of the trip which we had stated in the previous application.

5. “ln your current applications you have stated that you will have £2,500 (LKR. 505,650) available and that your spouse will have £1,500 (LKR. 303,390) available for your holiday. Therefore, a combined total of £5,000 (LKR. 809,039). You have increased the amount you propose to spend on your holiday, despite the fact that you have submitted evidence that you have recently purchased a new car. Incidentally, you have not submitted any evidence of how you financed the purchase of a new car. The apparent ambiguity around the amount of money you will have available for your holiday further damages the credibility of your application.”

• We have stated that we have £4,000 for the trip, but not £5,000 as the Entry Clearance officer has summed up incorrectly.

  • Third statement is again inaccurate. Figures related to the comparison regarding the said statement are as below;

    • Previous Applications Amount We have for the trip - £4,000
    • Previous Applications Personal Cost - £2,300
    • New Applications Amount We have for the trip - £4,000
    • New Applications Personal Cost - £2,200

• Basically, Entry Clearance Officer has compared the “Previous Applications Personal Cost” with the “New Applications Amount we have for the trip”, and came to the incorrect conclusion that we have increased the amount we propose to spend in our holiday, whereas it is the same as the previous application.

• I submitted evidence of buying the car to support the explanations in our cover letter to prove the transactions between my own accounts so as to answer the points in the previous refusal letter and to prove why I did those transactions, but not to prove that I purchased a new car.
• Finally as I explained from the above points, there is no ambiguity between the amount of money we have for the trip stated in the previous application and this, because it is the same amount (£4,000).

6. “On balance this leads me to doubt that the information in your new application is accurate”

• Entry Clearance Officer has come to this conclusion with all the above factually inaccurate and illogical statements he had made during his poor assessment, which clearly invalidates this statement.

Since I cannot appeal or ask for an administrative review, looks like I am out of options.I am hoping to complain this via Home Office complaints. Any ideas?

Refusal notice of my wife.

ECO has copied content from my notice and marked italic

Answer 1

I can answer several parts of your question.

False allegations: They do not make false allegations; in fact, they don't make any allegations. They make a decision based upon what's laid before them and explain how they got there. I don't see anything in the formulae you posted, including the one you deleted, to indicate any sort of personal attack. Moreover, it's a sackable offense for an employee to do something that gives an unprofessional image of UKVI, and refusals out of Chennai are put through two levels of higher review.

Complaints procedure: You always have the opportunity to file a complaint using their complaints procedure. You can try to use dispassionate language like...

The ECO did not examine evidence that was favourable to me and this resulted in a refusal. The ECO also relied upon assumptions that were unfavourable to me and contributed to my refusal. I also object to the ECO's language in the most strenuous of of terms.

Your complaint will go to the head office in London and ultimately arrive on the desk of the ECO's boss (who reviewed your refusal when it was first issued). If they decide your case has merit you will be invited to make a fresh application gratis. They will not reverse their original decision.

You should take careful note that you may not qualify as a complainant. Let's look at the written complaints form...

I have used a red marker to indicate why you may have trouble qualifying. The highlighted dot points may apply to you.

That answers your question. I don't want to delve into the specific formulae in your refusal notice because I am not convinced that it was actually written by an ECO. Dodgy language, unusual syntax, and you did not include the entire refusal letter.

Valuable commentary from Michael Hampton (to whom thanks) has referred you to the UK Law Society. It's great advice.

Also, Karlson (to whom thanks) has suggested that this imbroglio will not be sorted any time soon. You can take the opportunity to travel elsewhere and get some peripatetic history. They love it when an applicant has this.

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Adding...

The Chief Inspector (one of the 'good guys') is making a first principles inspection of UKVI's complaints procedure as we speak. He is currently asking for evidence (good, bad, otherwise) from practitioners in the field. When his inspection is complete, he'll publish a report on how the procedures work and whether or not they are effective in delivering fairness to applicants. Expect the report late this year or early next year.